time to split the marriage loot, the slimy ooze still carried weight.
Nobody liked being embarrassed with that stuff. Especially when there
were kids involved, as there were here.
The long-legged blonde couldn’t have been more than twenty, about his
daughter Renee’s age, while the hubby was pushing fifty. God, those
stock options. Must be nice. Or maybe it was the man’s bald head,
diminutive stature and soft pooch. You couldn’t figure some women.
Nah, must be the dough, Lee told himself. He put the camera away.
It was August in Washington, which meant just about everybody, other
than cheating husbands and their bimbos, and PIs who spied on them, was
out of town. It was hot, muggy, miserable. Lee had his window rolled
down praying for even the slightest movement of air, as he munched on
trail mix and bottled water. The hardest thing with this type of
surveillance was the lack of pee-pee breaks. That’s why he preferred
bottled water The empty plastic containers had come in handy more than
once for him. He checked his watch; it was close on midnight. Most
lights in the apartments and townhouses in the area had long since gone
out. He was thinking about heading on, himself. He had gotten enough
stuff in the last few days, including some embarrassing shots of a
late-night romp in the townhouse’s outdoor hot tub, to make the guy
easily fork up three quarters of his net worth. Two naked girls who
looked young enough to * be thinking about the senior prom, frolicking
in the bubbly water with a guy old enough to know better-this probably
wouldn’t sit too well with * the upstanding stockholders of the
husband’s nice little high-tech concern, Lee imagined. His own life
had taken on a routine bordering on obsessive monotony, * or so he had
dubbed it. He got up early, worked out hard, pounding the bag,
crunching the stomach and hoisting the weights until he thought his
body would raise the white flag and then present him with an aneurysm.
Then he went to work and kept at it nonstop until he barely made it to
dinner at the McDonald’s late-night drive-through near his apartment.
Then he went home, alone, and tried to sleep, but found that he was
never able to actually accomplish total unconsciousness. So he would
prowl the apartment, look out the window, wonder about a whole bunch of
things he couldn’t do a damn thing about. His life’s “what if’ book
was filled up. He’d have to go buy another one. There had been some
positives. Brooke Reynolds had made it her mission to send as much
business his way as possible, and it had been quality good-paying
stuff. She also had had a number of ex-FBI agent buddies now in
corporate security offer him full-time employment with, of course,
stock options. He had turned them all down. The gesture was
appreciated he had told Reynolds, but he worked alone. He was not a
suit type. He didn’t like eating the kinds of lunches that required
silverware. Additional elements of success would undoubtedly be
hazardous to his health. He had seen Renee a great deal, and each
time, things had gotten better between them. For about a month after
everything had shaken out, he had barely left her side, making sure
that nothing would happen to her because of Robert Thornhill and
company. After Thornhill had killed himself his concerns had faded,
although he was always on her to stay alert. She was going to come and
visit him before school started up again. Maybe he’d drop Trish and
Eddie a postcard, telling them what a fabulous job they’d done raising
her. Or maybe he wouldn’t.
Life was good, he kept telling himself. Business was good, he was in
good health, his daughter was back in his life. He wasn’t six feet
under helping to fertilize grass. And he had served his country. All
good shit. Which made him wonder why he was so unhappy, so out-and-out
miserable. Actually, he knew, but there was absolutely nothing he
could do about it. Wasn’t that a kicker? Story of his life. Know the
blues, but just can’t change them.